You don’t miss your water

Remember last week? My girls and I spent much of our time in New York City (I know!), where you will find the kind of humidity that uniquely exists in places where pavement outnumbers humans. I love it there, don’t get me wrong. Even in the summer where I have found myself on more than one occasion stepping out onto the street and bursting into laughter at the astonishingly unbearable heat. (But hang on a second. What’s with people who, all summer long, bring up the “dry heat” of, say, Arizona, as though this is somehow preferable? I don’t honestly care if my heat is humid or dry, frankly. It’s just plain hot, okay?)

Central Park, August 1978

What I remember most from summers in the city is the water. There are sprinklers in the parks which are on pretty much all the time and you could spend an entire day running through them as a kid (which I was known to do). Last week, every time we passed this one particular park on the way back to my dad’s apartment I always suggested to my girls that they go for the sprinklers, which my younger daughter (age 9) approached with great enthusiasm, but which my older daughter (age 12) rejected (again I draw your attention to the huge gap between 9 and 12).

And then there were the fire hydrants, which were (and are) famously left running day and night (and often turned into a ferocious stream by holding a cup over the nozzle), much to the joy of everyone in the neighborhood. My girls were startled to see this as we walked down several streets and I did concede that it wasted water, but really what were people going to do otherwise?

There was a fire hydrant on the block outside my high school and the last few weeks of school it was pretty much always on and if you weren’t careful during lunchtime you might be dragged in and held under the water and then forced to show up to Mr. Krutoy’s chemistry class completely drenched, and Mr. Krutoy, used to this already, would roll his eyes at you. Or even worse, if it happened after school, you’d be forced to drip puddles all over your regular city bus home, where ordinary bus passengers were less tolerant than your classmates.

For most of my childhood, I spent summers at a local Y day camp, which had its campgrounds in Rockland County, and would drive us all in school buses 40 minutes there and back every day. What I remember more than anything about this camp was the daily walk from the (outdoor) pool locker rooms to the bus every afternoon. Everyone was, by then, exhausted after a whole day of camp that always ended with an hour in the pool, leaping around and sometimes actually swimming. It was just a short walk from the locker room through a large row of pine trees to the parking lot. I will never forget that piney smell mixed with the chlorine smell of our hair and the pine needles crushing under my feet and the calmness that came over me every single time.

Around here when we go to lakes in the summer, I always like to go as late in the day as possible when there are few people left and the sun isn’t burning its rays directly through your skin and there is that same calm quiet feeling that has to do with swimming outdoors in the late afternoon and the walk back to the car.